No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 299 



If we accept this fact of variation "in productive power," how 

 shall the ordinary farmer determine the yield? It will pay any man 

 who is milking cows as a business to weigh the milk of each cow at 

 every milking, but most men won't do this. It will pay because 

 most milkers will strip enough more carefully to more than offset 

 the time required for -weighing. If the yield was down one-fourth 

 of a pound or one-half pound at the preceding milking the milker 

 will unconsciously give a little more attention at the succeeding 

 milking, prompted by the scales that may be he did not do his work 

 as well as he should the last time. It will pay because in no other 

 way can the owner know definitely that each cow is doing as well 

 as she should do, especially if he is not doing the milking himself. 

 By means of the milk record he may discover the evidence of care- 

 less milking, and the failure of certain cows to do what they should; 

 oftentimes this information will enable him to correct a fault and 

 maintain a yield that will amount to a good many hundred pounds 

 additional in a year. This is a feature of the daily record which is 

 usually overlooked by the men content to weigh occasionally. 



Kecognizing that many would like the information but are de- 

 terred from keeping the daily record by the apparent amount of 

 labor, the next best thing is to weigh the milk for seven consecutivv, 

 days ever}' seventh week, seven times during the year ; this will give 

 a very close approximation of the amount of milk produced, but will 

 be of little value to the man who is desirous of securing the largest 

 returns for feed consumed from day to day. If the market product 

 is butter fat it is necessary to test the milk and know how much 

 fat has been produced. In addition to the pounds of milk produced 

 he must know the per cent, of fat in the milk. To secure this, pro- 

 cure a sample bottle, pint milk jar or fruit jar, one for each cow, in 

 to this place a sample of each milking for seven days the same week 

 the milk is weighed, or if weighed every day, every seventh we'ek. 

 With the weight of milk and the per cent, of fat for definite periods 

 regularly throughout the year, it is but a matfer of figures to know 

 the production by each cow. 



Some prefer to weigh and test the milk three days, only, each 

 month. I prefer a longer period of seven days every seventh week, 

 because the longer the record period the more apparent the daily 

 variations, and the fewer times in the year will the occasional work 

 of testing need to be done. 



Most men are satisfied if they can guess pretty near to what their 

 cows are doing. When a very successful dairyman, and president 

 of a State Dairy Association, i)egan the keeping of a milk record of 

 his herd he recorded his guess as to which was the best cows 1st, 2nd, 

 3rd, 4th and so on. At the end of the year the one he had guessed 

 first actually ranked 4th and the one which held first place he had put 

 fifth in his guess, at the beginning of the year, while his second 

 guess occupied 6th place in actual production. Records from many 

 states show man's inability to guess accurately and therefore the 

 need of positive records to secure definite knowledge. 



While there is a difference in the value of feed consumed by differ- 

 ent cows in the same herd, this difference in most herds will be 

 less than |5.00 and will rarely exceed |10.00, yet the returns from 

 the different cows in the herd will vary from ^30. 00 to .fSO.OO, or to 

 state it in another way, |1.00 worth of feed will produce less than 



